


in the dark morning

by daisybrien



Category: The Devil's Engine Series - Alexander Gordon Smith
Genre: And so are the kids, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Post-Canon, Stress Baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 23:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: Baking is not the solution to sleeplessness, but it comes at a close second.





	in the dark morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VividSunsets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VividSunsets/gifts).



> Post canon where Pan gets her bakery and her cats WITH bonus boyfriend.

Pan isn’t beside him.

The sheets are mussed on her side of the mattress when Marlow begins to stir in the early hours of the morning, her pillow still warm when he rolls his way towards her and blinks in bleary confusion when he doesn’t find her there. In the blur of his sudden sleeplessness, he shuffles close enough that she would call him a bed-hog, pulling the covers with him as he moves to wrap an arm towards the far edge of the bed when he tries to envelope her in his embrace. It doesn’t completely register that the fuzzy, soft form adjacent is much too small to be her, that he can’t find the top of her head when he invades her space, and he perplexedly prods the space to investigate only to feel something sharp, swift and direct, dig into the flesh of his wrist.

“Ow,” he says, deadpan, as if the bundle of fur and fangs sprawled where Pan should be could understand him. He gets a hiss in response, and he glares back at the offending twin blue orbs staring him down in the darkness before leaning back to his bedside with a groan, turning on his lamp.

A glimpse at the digital clock on his table tells him its past two in the morning, the sharp angle of the numbers hidden when he has to shield his sensitive eyes against the glow of the new light. He groans, sitting up with the heels of his hands pressed firmly into his eyelids as he stretches out the soreness from his reluctant muscles, rubbing the sleep from his face. A look over his shoulder reveals the offender who had so rudely woken him – Brick sits alert by Pan’s pillow, his amber fur bristled and eyes narrow as he watches Marlow get up from his perch, a narrow, reedy growl in the back of his throat when he tries to pet him. 

“Yeah yeah yeah, I get it,” he mutters, moves to idly brush against the second mass of fur sat almost in the middle of the bed, rising and falling with silent purrs. “You don’t have to get all pissy about it.”

A half-hearted _merp_ is all he gets from Brick’s sister in response. A joint in his knee pops when he finally stands, struggles to slip a pair of sweatpants on before he leaves the bedroom in search of his girlfriend, following clues in the form of the light drifting in from their kitchen.

It takes a moment for the scent to make itself known to him – and it is absolutely heavenly, he actually thinks he begins drooling – the last few years finding him accustomed to the smell of pastries baking in their ovens, a new discovery or recipe on Pan’s part adding something new to the morning aroma as the seasons passed them by. Even so, it almost startles him this early in the morning, and so close by – the ovens in the bakery on the ground floor of their lot wouldn’t be on for the next two hours and change.

She’s hidden behind their little kitchen table, a worn rickety thing stacked with take-out boxes still greasy from last night’s shared meal. He has to peer above the mess in order to get a full view of her as she sits back on her haunches in front of the oven, the curve of her spine as she hunches over her knees an elegant arc that makes each bone of her spine jut out uniformly under her pale skin. She’s dressed sparsely, in the same shorts and tank top she went to sleep with. The golden glow of the light inside the oven door etches her half-lidded eyes in a sickly yellow glow, the sharp angle of her profile and the bruise-like circles under her eyes washed pale of all colour. She looks ill when she turns to face him, the padding of his bare feet against the tile floor alerting her of his presence.

She gives him a small, tired grin from her perch on the floor, the edges of her hard face growing soft. “Hey you.”

“Watched cakes don’t rise,” Marlow quips from his place in the doorway. Her face blooms into a smile at that, the corners of her unfocused eyes crinkling.

“Is that so,” she replies, taking his offered hand as she unfolds herself from her position, wobbling slightly on her toes as she unravels to her full, imposing height. She’s too busy slipping on oven mitts to reciprocate Marlow’s casual embrace, but still leans into the arm he leaves gently slung around her waist as she pulls her trays from the oven. He rests his chin on her shoulder as he peers over her hands, crisscrossed with old scars and new burns, a fresh welt on the back of her left hand from a few days prior still red and raw. 

“What are those,” Marlow croons, and she swats at him playfully with the mittens once she’s left the trays to cool.

“I have no idea,” she sighs, leaning back into his embrace. “Some cranberry-vanilla some-shit I was thinking of, for the holidays.”

“It’s October.”

“Early bird.”

Which reminds him why he’s up so early, of the exhaustion in Pan’s stance as she closes her eyes, lets her head fall back so she can press her cool cheek to his. He wraps both his arms around her now, tight around her stomach as the two slowly, ever so gently rock to a hidden rhythm. 

“Too early to start batches for the day,” Marlow mumbles into her shoulder, a question hidden in the guarded lilt of his voice, and he peers at Pan’s stony face as she breathes, slow and even. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” is all she says in response. Another sigh, heavier this time, as she folds one hand over his, the other moving up and around so she can brush her fingers through his bedhead. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

Marlow shakes his head against her, squeezes her close in reassurance. He buries his face in her neck, his lips finding her pulse briefly before he rubs his nose along the tendons underneath. He feels the biting chill of the metal embedded along the circumference of her neck, the chain of blunted, oval indents that blurred into the iron sinews of torn skin regrown wrapped around her like a noose. His fingers find a metallic scar embedded in her abdomen, and he traces the border when her skin has begun to sluggishly grow over it. It’s delicate, thin enough to tear at the slightest touch, translucent so he can still see the glint of the Engine beneath it against the harsh kitchen lights.

But _it’s healing_ , he repeats to himself like a mantra. He’s discovered that his own skin has started gradually growing over the marks on him in some places, even caught a glimpse of a scar on the nape of Night’s neck where the metal had all but faded away to new tissue. 

His words are barely above a whisper, his eyes closed as he relishes the familiar feeling of her pressed against him. “You want to talk about it?”

“Nothing to,” she says tentatively. She shifts in his arms, and Marlow can feel the muscles of her jaw flex against his cheek, the flutter of her breath stutter. “Just too much on my mind.”

“You could’ve woken me up, you know that,” Marlow tells her, his voice thick with his worry. He takes Pan’s waist in his hands as she wriggles against him, and she complies when he gestures for her to turn around so they can face each other. 

“I didn’t want to bother you.” She crosses her arms over her chest, her tongue poking through her cheek as she stares at the floor, the usual piercing blue of her eyes soft with her tender fatigue.

“You’d never bother me.” Marlow cups her cheek, runs his fingers around her ear as if to brush her hair back. Her eyes flutter closed as she presses against his palm, her exasperated laugh a stuttered gasp. “Never about this. You know that?”

“I know.”

“Good,” Marlow says, suddenly incredibly sure of himself and he pulls her close. He presses a chaste kiss to her lips, one she pretends to try to dodge before returning, her lips soft and enthusiastic against his. “Because I love you.”

“Love you too,” she croons, pressing a kiss to his cheek before trying to squirm away and back to the kitchen counter.

“Hey, now,” he chides. “Bedtime. Rest. Sleep. Both of us.”

“I have to clean everything, Marlow,” she moans, the annoyed roll of her eyes betrayed by her grin as Marlow walks the two of them backwards to the bedroom.

“Do it tomorrow.”

“The cookies need to cool.”

“They can do that while we sleep.”

“We need to put them away,” Pan rebukes. “So the cats don’t get to them.”

“You wanted the cats,” Marlow remind her, but dutifully lets her go so they can sit at the table. “Both of them, couldn’t leave with just one kitten from that new rescue litter, noooo - not my fault if they get into the food.”

“We had to get Donovan’s stomach pumped after he ate a whole chocolate loaf,” Pan snarks at him. 

“That was serious!”

“And your fault!”

The two bicker until both of them burst into laughter, in guarded light giggles that rise up from Marlow’s stomach like blowing bubbles into a gentle summer breeze. They sprawl out onto the table, Pan picking over their leftover boxes, grimacing at the dregs stuck to the bottom of some of the paper containers before folding her arms underneath her head to lie there.

He doesn’t touch the cookies until Pan says so, takes to milling around their apartment – he dodges Brick as he bristles past into the living room, scooping Daisy up by the belly and all but bowling her into the living room when he sees her tail float by, upright and inquisitive, before leaping up mischievously onto the kitchen counter. He scrolls through the dead feeds on his phone, turns the radio on so its dull susurrations blend into the din of drunken laughter and sirens in the street outside. He pulls the afghan off their ratty sofa so he can wrap it around Pan’s shoulders, props his head on his hand as he stares at the hard edges of her face, slack as she rests her cheek against the polished old wood. She doesn’t sleep, her eyes fluttering open to look at him, the corner of her mouth curling when he runs a hand through her hair, sitting up with a sigh when Brick – the little bastard, he told Pan he doesn’t want them on the kitchen tabletops – saunters by, lets her pet him in a long swipe from head to tail that he could never get away with. 

He’s almost asleep by the time Pan tells him the cookies are good to go, packing most of them away before pulling him towards the couch with a bundle of them in her hands. She tucks her knees under her chin, extending the blanket like a cape so Marlow can slip underneath and nestle against her neatly like the fit of a jigsaw piece. The pastry breaks neatly in her hands - chewy against his teeth, crumbs stuck to her chin that he wipes away with his thumb – and they’re laughing and sighing and kissing with the cats napping at their feet and the stars still glinting at them through the gossamer curtains that lead out into the cold early morning beyond.

He almost hates that his head is beginning to loll against her shoulder - he doesn’t know when he falls asleep, if he does at all. But he stirs to the feeling of her firm, strong hands laying him down on the sofa, and the warm press of her lips and loving words against his cheek, and lets himself snooze with his head on the armrest until sunrise when he’ll tiptoe to the bakery downstairs and coax her back to bed in the morning.


End file.
